Oct 2008After owning a rather special B5 1.8TQ for a number of years, I was very impressed with the RS4s engine, but quite underwhelmed by the chassis. So after some research I bought a set of these from the US. They werenít hugely expensive at the time but they go for around 700USD these days:

I have to say it made a massive difference to the roll control and general sharpness of the steering and handling.

Around this time I had the car remapped for the first time. This made it rather more rapid, more due to torque rather than max power.

Yes sacrilege I know to take a nice car on the track and yes no one will want to bye it off me (I'm keeping it forever anyway), but man lots of fun and you learn so much about driving and car control. And i figure if the car doesnít break on the track it wonít break anywhere. Plausible?

Dec 2008Car on the dyno at the Torque Performance VASK dyno day that I organised:

They were concerned it wasnít going open loop fuelling at WOT. The factory tune uses closed loop fuel and exhaust temp (EGT) sensors as protection against excessive temps (high temp triggers richer mixtures). Anyway, with a mapped car itís prudent to run the mixtures richer at WOT to keep the temps down. This is what prompted me to later put the car back to the standard tune.

Mar 2009Bought and installed this along with brand new factory RS4 clutch.

Pluses: Engine more free revving, able to blip the throttle on down shifts, direct torque feedback from the powertrain, easier to achieve smooth gear shifts. Minuses: lose some rotational inertia at low engine speeds (not really an issue with the V6), lack of vibration damping at low engine speeds when under load.

Jun 2009Torque Performance offered me a free run on their dyno. This is still with the previously remapped ECU. You can see how the fuelling stays close to lambda=1 throughout the run. I stress this is exactly what the factory tune does as well, but many tuners prefer to go open loop and run richer at WOT to keep things cooler. More on this later. I think itís OK for stage 1, but probably not ideal. Depends who you talk to I guess.

Here is a quote from page 45 of the 2.7TT Self Study Guide:

Quote

The Motronic controls the exhaust gas temperature to 980 įC by enriching the air/fuel mixture .It is therefore possible to largely dispense with the prophylactic enrichment process that has been standard practice until now.The mixture is only enriched...

... when necessary and... to the extent necessary.This means that engine operation with lambda = 1 is possible up to high load and engine speed ranges.

Advantage:

ē Improved efficiency and reduction of fuel consumption as well as exhaust emissions